happy monday!

I just wanted to share a few photos from the holiday...

Haleigh dressed up as an Indian for her 3rd grade Thanksgiving play! She had the most colorful paperbag costume of all!



Thanksgiving at my Mom's house. The kids had a great time playing with their 2nd cousins, Aiden and Sara. There's a pic of Greg with Buddy, Aunt Cheryl and her family, and some of the family playing Blockus.


Thanksgiving get together at Alyssa's house, for Dad, Aunt Becky and Michele. Dad was enjoying some football in another room. Brian & Dakota messing around. Becky & Michele hanging out in the kitchen (which seems to be all the women's favorite spot). A "festive" pic of Billy & Alyssa and what I think is going to be our Christmas card photo...

Happy Thanksgiving (a couple days late)...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had dinner at my Mom's house and I got to see my Aunt and Uncle from western Illinois (they are my age) and their two little ones, Aiden and Sarah. Sarah is the funniest little 2 1/2 year old I've ever met! All of my immediate family was there as well, including my Grandma and another Aunt and her family. The food was good and it was nice being around everyone.

Unfortunately (or fortunately to some), we didn't get to do any Black Friday shopping. Brian did go out and get the "big" present for Dakota and he picked up one of the gifts that I wanted to get for my sister but, that's it. Our big days of shopping will be Dec. 18th & 19th! I'm kinda hoping to get something crafty done for Christmas but, I'm just not feeling it. Kinda sad really.

So, today is Thanksgiving #2 with my Dad at my sister's house. It will be a VERY small gathering and we're having ham instead of turkey but, I think that it will be a great time! I will also be enjoying some yummy white russians!!!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!!

So much to do...

so very little time! I can't believe that Christmas is only FIVE WEEKS AWAY!!! And, let's not forget that Thanksgiving is literally around the corner! My gosh! Where does the time go? The sad thing is that I had a goal of completing 150 layouts this year and I'm not quite sure if I'm going to make it. I went away for another weekend and completed 12 more, getting me closer but, I feel that I'm running out of time! I still have to make my Christmas cards!!! Ahhh!!!

I did manage to complete a layout for the challenge over at the American Crafts blog (I love these challenges - so many cool creations from others to see). This week's challenge was to complete a layout or a card using two or more products from their Junior line. I was in luck, as I had just 2 sheets of paper from this line (and a package of flair)!

So...here's the layout:

Materials used:

American Crafts Junior paper - Blastoff! (in the "O")
American Crafts Junior paper - Boom
American Crafts Subway thickers

I wish that I had more to choose from but, I haven't yet had the chance to purchase any! I really NEED the thickers from this line! They are awesome!


I'll be back later this weekend to post more of the layouts that I got completed...including a TWO-PAGER! Yep, you heard me right! I think it's been at least 5 years since I've done one of those!!!

I am SO proud!!!

I meant to post this last week but, things have been a little crazy around here! We received an invitation for an honor roll/merit roll assembly for the first quarter recipients!!! And BOTH of our kids were on it! Merit was 3.0 to 3.5 GPA, Honor was 3.5 to 3.99 GPA and SUPER honor roll was a straight 4.0. Dakota made the Honor roll and Ms. Haleigh made SUPER honor roll!!! Haleigh also had perfect attendance and she rated #1 on the ISTEP for her grade so she got a $10 gift card to Walmart! We also took them out to Wally World to buy something little and took them out to KFC. Not super exciting for some but, we don't do that very often!!!

I will also say that it was SO nice to see that a MAJORITY of the 3rd through 6th graders made at least MERIT. I love that my kids are in such a small school now with a lot more kids (and parents) like our family. Coming from a school where it seemed like the majority of the parents could really care less. It's just nice. It's also nice that the kids get recognized and commended for good grades! In their old school, it was that no one did great or did bad. That's how things were graded. Those kids will get into the real world and think that mediochre is ok. So sad.

Anyway, here's a pic of my super happy honor roll getting kids!


I love these two!!!

Home of the sickies...

Yep. We are all sick. I had a sore throat starting on Thursday, which turned into a cold/sinus thing. Dakota came home from school on Friday and shortly after he got home, starting actually getting sick. We thought it was possibly food poisoning. Nope. Brian and Haleigh have both got the same thing today! I can deal with the cold/sinus thing but, I'm really keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that I don't get what they all have! I'm actually supposed to be leaving town this weekend so, I'm really hoping I get through this week with no worries!!!

Another AC challenge..

and it's a Halloween one!!! Perfect! I took so many pics of the decorations, party, kids in costume....This was the perfect chance to get something scrapped! I turned some of my decor pics black and white and made a collage of them...just to make it easier to scrap. Simple. I live for it!


Materials used:

American Crafts "Howl" Halloween paper
American Crafts "Horror" Halloween paper
American Crafts "Creepy" Color Halloween sticker
American Crafts "Dolce" fabric thickers